


this circus we're in

by likewinning



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-11
Updated: 2009-11-11
Packaged: 2018-02-07 09:19:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1893672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>She tastes like Texas heat, like lemons and smoke and chapstick, and it’s <strong>really</strong> not Ruby’s fault if she’s too distracted to get into the <strong>I’m a demon, ask me how</strong> aspect of things.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	this circus we're in

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Tori Amos.

****

  
i. _she’s afraid of a light in the dark._  


Ruby’s eyes don’t turn black until after she reaches Jo’s apartment, until after Jo gets her hand under Ruby’s t-shirt and her fingers are making quick work of Ruby’s bra. Her movements are confident; she’s done this before with someone else, that much Ruby can tell. They both smell like smoke and tequila and Ruby catches a hint of lemon every time Ruby leans up to kiss her. It’s kind of an accident, the way Ruby’s eyes go blue to black like a bruise. _Kind of_ , because while Ruby’s more human than most of her contemporaries, while she still aches for this, someone’s (Jo’s) hands on her and Jo’s mouth pressing soft but not entirely _sweet_ against hers – she still can’t help but get a kick out of the _horrified_ look on Jo’s face.

Jo’s pretty to begin with, but her eyes get so _wide_ – and, yeah, part of Ruby really likes it.

Mostly, though, it all makes her feel about as sad as a soulless thing can feel. This wasn’t _about_ that.

Suddenly all of that forcefulness, that girl-in-charge shit that _Ruby_ personifies effortlessly and Jo wears almost as well – it all disappears. Jo looks like someone stole her dog or broke her heart or _whatever_. Whatever it is, Ruby’s still human enough to know when it’s time to leave, and she does. She even uses the door, if that counts at all. It probably doesn’t.

  
**  
ii. _you put on that look that says, “This little star wishes she weren’t single.”_**   


In West Texas, she tries for some kind of real life. For a while after the thing with Sam, Jo pretends she’s going to hunt, that this is going to be her _life_ and she’ll prove everyone (Ellen) wrong. She’ll save lives, and it will be worth all she’s had to go through.

She tries, for a while. But her hands shake every time she reads through a newspaper and she highlights all the wrong sections. She clutches her knife tighter than ever and checks the locks on her apartment door a hundred times a night. She isn’t a fucking _baby_ , and she still breaks the nose of the first guy at the new bar who tries to put his hands on her, but she decides that for a while, she needs to ignore the things out there in the dark.

It’s not that she craves something normal; she knows she’ll always be a freak, but she wants something _quieter_. Rowdy guys who wouldn’t know a ghost from a poltergeist, a werewolf from a rabid dog – that, to her, is quiet.

But nothing goes as planned. It’s lonely in Texas, and too hot, so hot that the only difference between day and night is the type of customers. She misses her mom (and, god, that sounds so fucking _stupid_ , but), misses her every day and most days _more_ than that, misses the gravel in her voice and the disapproving tone and the warm, warm feel of her hand stroking Jo’s hair after a bad night at the bar. She misses hearing about near-death experiences, about daring (stupid) moves and all the things that go bump in a hunter’s night. 

It’s all she’s ever wanted for herself, her little girl’s version of romance, and maybe that’s why she lets herself be taken _in_ when Ruby walks into the bar. Her heels clack across the bar room tile and her eyes fix on Jo and there’s this _spark_ , like setting a match to whiskey, and Jo doesn’t _know_ , but she knows she’s in trouble. It’s not unusual, for someone to look at her like she’s meat, but this is – different.

Ruby looks at Jo like she wants to eat her alive. And Jo – well, Jo looks back like maybe she wouldn’t mind.

  
****

**iii. _alert as a tigress at a common table with her fate._**   


The way Ruby sees it, Jo brings it on herself. Ruby’s been in Texas for two days and hasn’t found a trace of the Winchesters, despite what all her friends (and Ruby uses that term really, really loosely because she gutted them like fish when she was done asking politely for help) told her. All she does is walk into the bar for a drink and immediately Jo’s eyes are right on her. Granted, Jo’s behind the counter, so she’s being a good _hostess_ or whatever, but – come on. Two hundred plus years and Ruby knows, fucking _knows_ , when someone wants her.

So she sits down on a stool, orders a shot, and ignores the advances of half a dozen guys while she and Jo flirt so long neither of them notices the entire damn rest of the place has emptied out. Ruby’s not the type to admit when she doesn’t have a plan, an angle, _something_ – but. All she remembers is reaching across the bar to trace her fingers along the inside of Jo’s wrist. All she remembers is staring at Jo’s hipbones, Jo’s tank top too tiny and her jeans slung too low to cover them completely. She stares at Jo’s tiny shoulders and long neck every time Jo brushes her long blonde hair out of the way, at skin that flushes pink every time Ruby looks that way.

All she remembers is _Jo_ being the one, when it’s just the two of them left in the bar, who comes around the counter and says, “Hey, why don’t we –” right before she tugs Ruby up and kisses her for the first time.

She tastes like Texas heat, like lemons and smoke and chapstick, and it’s _really_ not Ruby’s fault if she’s too distracted to get into the _I’m a demon, ask me how_ aspect of things.  
 ****

 **  
iv. _one mistake in a subtle way._  
**

Jo closes the night after, telling Roy she can manage fine on her own – he has a wife and kids to go home to, while all Jo has is a bottle of Jack and some true crime novels. She’s just fine by herself, really, until she looks up from cleaning off the counter and Ruby’s just – _there_ , standing right in front of her. The doors have been locked for almost twenty minutes.

“Hey there, girlie,” Ruby says, grinning the same way that earned her free tequila and access to Jo’s apartment last night. Jo hates that she still wants to kiss that look right off Ruby’s mouth.

The heat is probably getting to her; twelve o’clock and there’s still a gleam of sweat on her neck. Ruby looks completely comfortable in her leather jacket and jeans, and Jo tries to remember if Ruby’s hands were cold, the night before. Wishes she could stop wanting to find out.

Jo takes a step back as Ruby moves in closer, confident stride that Jo interpreted last night as _assertive_ , not demonic. It’s casual, Ruby’s casual, like they know each other. Like she’s not something Jo’s always wanted to hunt. _Look, ma_ , Jo thinks, and flinches.

She turns away, tossing the rag down and catching her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. Ruby’s there, too, and they seem to stand closer together this way, like there’s no countertop separating them, like nothing stops them from reaching for each other.

When she turns back, her knife is in her hand and she’s leaning in to say, _“I know what you are.”_

Ruby doesn’t flinch. Her eyes run up the length of the knife – it doesn’t take long, and Jo thinks once of Dean, wonders if he ever fucked a demon and didn’t know it -, and then she says, “Yeah?” Challenging her; Jo knows her hands are shaking. “Then you know that won’t do much good.”

“Don’t know,” Jo says, tilting her head and moving the knife a little closer. “Pure iron,” she says. “Bet it’ll sting like a bitch.” The blade hovers inches from Ruby’s neck and Jo’s hands aren’t shaking so much anymore, even when Ruby’s eyes flash blue-to-black for a second.

Finally – finally – Ruby backs up. “Look,” she says. She holds her hands up. “I’m not here to – it isn’t _about_ that.” Jo isn’t sure which one of them rolls their eyes first, just knows that when her gaze refocuses, Ruby’s staring right at her and Jo – well, she knows demons lie, but do they lie this _well_?

She remembers Sam, not Sam, telling the truth. Figures a lie might not be so bad.

“If I wanted to,” Ruby says, her voice soft and scratchy, “a little thing like that wouldn’t stop me.”

Jo figures Ruby has a point. Ruby could’ve killed her, possessed her – anything. It only took Sam ( _not Sam_ ) about five minutes, last time, to knock her out and tie her up. Ruby hasn’t even touched her, hasn’t _tried_. She lowers the knife, just a little.

“What do you want?” she asks.

“Put that away,” Ruby says. “We’ll talk.”  
 ****

 **  
v. _small town witch come to mess me up._  
**

“Pretty girl like you,” Ruby murmurs in her ear, voice like a cool breeze in hell, like everything Jo doesn’t want to think about, can’t stop thinking about, “used to be, I’d ride you ‘till you broke.”

She breathes it all against Jo‘s skin, licking from collarbone to hipbone and stopping there to look back up. Whenever she does this, Jo isn’t sure whether she wants Ruby’s eyes to be blue or black, whether she wants Ruby to look at her like she’s something to devour (possess) or to look at her like really, inside somewhere, there’s a person – something _real._

And Jo doesn’t know what she puts more effort into: trying to remember that fact, or to forget it entirely.

Either way, Ruby kisses and licks and fucks the thoughts straight out of her, and Jo isn’t exactly _passive_ about it. Ruby never stays long, a day here or a night there, and Jo drops everything for her. If Ruby shows up at the bar, Jo’s apron is off and she’s out from behind the counter before Roy can say a damn word; if Ruby shows up at her apartment, Jo knows before there’s a knock, before there’s more than a shift in the air.

She doesn’t know what Ruby does when she isn’t here, though, and she doesn’t ask. “We’re not girlfriends,” Jo makes sure to tell her, her voice maybe wavering but her grip on Ruby’s wrist, as she drags Ruby out of the bar, perfectly firm.

“Please,” Ruby says, and rolls her eyes before her mouth is back on Jo’s like it never left.

Jo figures it’s good to have ground rules.  
 ****

 **vi. _moving like a hunter through my back door._  
**

This is how it happens: Ruby finally tracks down the Winchesters, and Sam kind-of sort-of accepts her help, and Dean calls her ever derogatory name he can come up with without straining himself. If Ruby’s not busy helping them out of some stupid mess, she’s usually here with Jo.

It starts out as a way to pass the time, but after a while Ruby only looks forward to this. Her whole damn life isn’t the Winchesters or Jo; _things_ are happening. But when she can (when she needs to) she finds her way back here, West Texas heat crawling up her spine as soon as she arrives, scent of Jo – that sting of alcohol and cigarettes, that sweet smell of the vanilla soap Jo uses – dragging her in.

She forgets, for a while, that this isn’t her body or her _life_ and one of these days she’s just not going to fucking come back because things are _happening_ and only luck will get her through. She forgets, as Jo traces lines across her stomach with her tongue, as Jo fucks her with her fingers and drives her _crazy_ , makes Ruby feel like she hasn’t since –

Well, ever.

“Getting kind of attached to me, aren’t you?” Jo teases the fifth time, when Ruby shows up at the end of April just outside of Jo’s apartment as Jo’s getting home. Ruby shakes her head, doesn’t say a word, just grabs Jo right there in the parking lot and kisses her like she might die if she doesn’t. Which is ridiculous, because Ruby _can’t_ die, and anyway –

Anyway, Jo kisses back just as desperately, one hand running through Ruby’s hair and the other brushing across Ruby’s cheek, and Ruby pretends she doesn’t _love_ that. Because Jo’s rough, usually – they both are – but there’s something to be said for how Jo is when she forgets that Ruby’s supposedly some evil soulless thing – when she just does what she _feels_ like doing. Sometimes Ruby thinks she must have the worst luck in the whole fucking world, being a demon and still being able to _feel_ so much, to know how it’s supposed to be – but times like this, she thinks it might be worth it.  
 ****

 **  
vii. _but now when she looks at you she covers one eye._  
**

The sun’s setting when Ruby leaves, the light hitting all the different shades of gold in her hair and making her eyes shine so fucking _blue_ when she looks back at Jo for the last time. “No kiss goodbye?” she asks, her voice a thousand cigarettes and her breath like the peach schnapps they drank last night, and she’s everything Jo knows forward and backward and not at all.

Jo stands in the hallway, staring at everything but Ruby (the musty old couch that came with the place, the windows she keeps open even when it rains, the shadow Ruby casts over the wooden floor). It’s not like she’d been expecting _forever_ ; it’s not like she _has_ that long, but she started to think after all this time that even _demons_ have standards, and Ruby won’t even say where she’s going, what’s going to happen. And Jo’s just a little too human, still, to pretend like it doesn’t _matter_.

She wants to take the ten steps to her, wants to shout _fuck you_ and kiss her ‘till her mouth is red and bruised and entirely _Jo’s_ , but none of that is possible, so she stays in the hall, twirling her knife idly in her hand. It’s still her only constant.  
 ****

viii. _this love was born on crutches._  


Ruby doesn’t say what’s going to happen. She never says, “Look, I’m going to try to help Sam Winchester fight a mega-powerful demon, so – it was nice knowing you.”

But they can read each other now; two hundred plus years and Ruby’s never known anyone better, and so Jo knows this is it, that Ruby’s about to do something that will leave her with more than blood under her nails, scratches on her cheeks. She’s not going to come back from this and just fuck Jo ‘till it _feels_ better.

She’s not _that_ adolescent.

She has to do it, and Jo’s pretty face pretty hands warm brown eyes can’t stop her. She’s got a few hundred years on Jo, and she recognizes that this is a little fucking more important. That doesn’t stop her almost wishing for a second –

She doesn’t, though. Girls like her – _things_ like her – don’t get what they want. It’s stupid, anyway, just like she’s told herself for months. She just keeps her back turned and says, “Take care of yourself, honey,” and then she’s gone, thinking it’s the most human thing she’s ever said.

**Author's Note:**

> Title quotes are from: Tori Amos, Songs: Ohia, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Sneaker Pimps, Poe, the Kills, and Veruca Salt.


End file.
